An invigorating reclamation of psychoanalysis from modern capitalism
It has been decades since Freud fell out of favor, not only in mainstream psychiatry but also in radical thought, where both he and Lacan were accused of sexist and class biases. A People's History of Psychoanalysis refuses to accept this growing depoliticization of a formerly revolutionary field.
Florent Gabarron-Garcia shatters the comfortable narrative of psychoanalysts as armchair theorists placidly interpreting family complexes sheltered in their consulting rooms. Recalling Freud's radical moments (such as his promotion of free clinics in Weimar Germany) or lesser-known figures, including the Marxist Feminist psychoanalyst Marie Langer, his new history delves into how revolutionary ferment has cross-fertilized the exploration of the unconscious.
A People's History of Psychoanalysis is for those who wish to resist the conformist, therapist-centered, and repressive management of madness under contemporary capitalism.
Introduction
I. Freud looks to the East. Vera Schmidt and Psychoanalysis in the Land of the Soviets I
I. Wilhelm Reich, from the Vienna Polyclinic at Sexpol in Berlin
III. The future of Freudian pessimism
IV. Marie Langer: from Vienna in the 1930s to Latin America in the 1970s
V. Of the Catalan municipality at the La Borde clinic
VI. Revival of revolutionary psychoanalysis in Germany: the Heidelberg experience
Conclusion: For another psychoanalysis
Florent Gabarron-Garcia is a psychoanalyst, psychologist and doctor in psychopathology. He lectures at University Paris 8. After teaching philosophy in high school, he trained in institutional analysis at the La Borde clinic, later working in the psychiatric hospital and in the CMPP. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Chimčres, founded by Deleuze and Guattari. He currently lives in France.
Shuli Branson is a queer and trans writer, translator, teacher, artist, and anarchist organiser, living in Western North Carolina. They translated Guy Hocquenghem's second book, Gay Liberation After May 68, as well as Jacques Lesage De La Hayes The Abolition of Prison, and co-edited Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies. They are also a frequent co-host on the anarchist podcast The Final Straw Radio.
